In Dreams and Death
by Canvas Constellations
Summary: He tells her he'll whisk her away in his spaceship (just as soon as he figures out how to fly it).
1. wrap me up in dreams and death

**Because every fandom needs a Vampire AU.**

~:~

 **I**

 **Wrap me up in Dreams and Death**

* * *

 **Prompts: Hunger, Innocence**

* * *

She lies dreaming of home and sunlight when he stumbles into the ruins of the second era opera house she's claimed as hers. Crescent wakes to the smell of blood and the shuffle of unsteady footsteps.

Her first instinct is to hide, her second is to _bite_. He's beautiful, the noisy, brown-haired, blue-eyed thing. She lingers behind the soft curtains and aches to run her fingers through his hair, down his jaw. She dreams of pressing a kiss there and squeaks.

(She hasn't fed in a week and her teeth hurt.)

He hears her near-silent sound and reaches for his gun. The bullets aren't silver, she can tell, but she scrambles back further into a corner and wraps herself in shadows. She can easily disarm him, pull him down and nick a taste of that rich, thick blood she can smell on him, drink deep and long until his heart is but a flutter and his skin is less than warm.

But what she wants to do is ask him how he got hurt so bad. She wants to wrap him in bandages and clutch at the warmth of him, warmth that has eluded her for many, many years. She bites her lip and counts the years it's been since she has been around a person, a living, breathing _person,_ for any longer than it takes for her to snap their neck. About a century. Almost as long as she's been dead.

The air carries a tang of his fear in it. He moves slowly, haltingly, eyeing all the dark corners with distrust. The hand that isn't clutching his sad little weapon is holding the torn skin and tissue at the side of his stomach. His breathing is so loud, it drowns the whisper of her feet as she dances away to find a med kit.

(She's kept one for the birds and the kittens. All the stray things she should be biting into.)

His eyes widen when he sees her. His feet stumble on the debris littering the broken stone floor. She hopes he doesn't notice the spot of blood on her dress. At least she's combed and painstakingly braided her hair earlier in the day, twining a pretty piece of crimson ribbon she found in one of the forgotten wreaks of a dressing room. She shifts from one foot to the other and after several long seconds moves cautiously, slowly towards him, step by visible step.

He looks like he wants to run. His fingers tighten around the gun but he doesn't raise it towards her. Something inside him recognises the predator in her; through she doesn't look the part. Yet he lets her approach, lets her grasp the ends of his sleeve and pull him gently towards the crumbling staircase.

He watches her with keen, curious eyes as she cleans and binds his cuts and bruises, and that ugly gash at his side. He winces at the sting of the antiseptic. She flinches at the thought of hurting him. (He's _very_ pretty.) He studies her still as she gathers up the cotton and gauze and returns them all to her med kit. He looks like he wants to say something, and she expects him to ask about her red rimmed eyes or her too pale, too cold skin.

He leans in close, she recoils back. He grins, lopsided and wicked, and whistles, low and long.

"That is a _lot_ of hair," he tells her.

-o-

Crescent doesn't think he'll come back. But then again, strays often do.

He looks better this time around. There's a delicious colour to his cheeks, and no limp in his gait. His hair looks so fluffy, so soft that she almost buries her fingers in it before she withdraws and shuffles back hurriedly.

He looks amused but makes no comment. He brings gifts instead: a bag of blood and a blue-green dress of chiffon and lace. "You've got a little..." he gestures at the stain by her collar.

She thanks him in a quiet voice and he grins at her brightly. "So," he says, "how about introductions?"

-o-

He comes back again and again, and she wants to ask him why, but she's afraid that he'll stop if she makes him realise that his behaviour is strange. She's dangerous. The blood on her clothes didn't come from any rats or ally cats. She dreams all too often of licking her way down his neck and sinking her teeth into his veins.

He asks her about the turning one afternoon. Some days she can't sleep, and she only needs to send him a comm and he's there, as if he has nothing better to do. She understands that he's something of a thief (he prefers ''criminal mastermind) and his scrapes from the time they'd first met were from a particularly hazardous venture that leaned towards the illegal. She thinks about the first time she'd killed someone. She can no longer remember a face, or even the first taste. She only remembers the crippling horror afterwards, and how she had run so far, so fast that it had taken her sire a week to find her.

She finds herself reaching towards him involuntarily but he's bathed in sunlight, golden, precious, and out of reach. He catches the movement, and smiles. His fingers seek her out and wind around hers. (If she tugs at him a little too hard, she could pull him into the shadows with her.)

She doesn't answer is queries. The turning is not something she likes to think about. She can barely remember a time when she wasn't just teeth and bones and hunger. She closes her eyes and counts his heartbeats instead.

-o-

It took her a long time to be able to break away from Mistress Sybil, but for the last decade, she's been free. Half-starved and confined to a shabby opera house, yes, but free. And for that decade, she hasn't killed anyone. Not yet. She's slipped in and out of blood banks whenever she can (eluding security systems is a speciality of hers), or had a taste, a little sip from here and there (erasing and altering memories are as easy as wiping a security camera feed).

She takes a bite of a cat once. It struggles, and scratches, and breaks free before she can have her fill. And it never comes back to the opera house. Other animals do though. Pretty birds, and wounded pups. Hungry kittens, a one eyed mouse, and one Captain Carswell Thorne.

-o-

He traces circular patterns on her back, like letters, or words, or stories. His head rests on her shoulder, and Crescent can hardly believe the amount of trust he's placed in her. (She can break him, if she wants.)

She hums a lullaby as she fiddles with his portscreen, going about setting new high scores in all his video games. She doesn't even notice that he's fallen asleep.

-o-

He kisses her cheek when he leaves. She squeaks, and the brush of his heat haunts her for days.

-o-

She doesn't understand _why_ when he doesn't come back. She's commed him twice. She comms him again. But night shifts into day, and day shifts back into night, again, and again, and there is still no sign of him.

She had never thought that heartbreak could hurt more than death ever did.

-o-

A month. That's how long he's gone.

He returns with shadows under his eyes, and she can smell blood on him. The first thing he does when he sees her is hug her. She freezes because she's never been hugged before. Never ever. His warmth envelops her and she can only hold still for eight whole seconds before she bursts into tears.

He whispers apologies long after she has stopped crying.

-o-

 _Happy_ , is not something she remembers ever being. Somewhere at the back of her mind she knows that Mistress Sybil will find her. She always does.

He tells her he'll whisk her away in his spaceship (just as soon as he figures out how to fly it).

-o-

He never gets to.

-o-

There's a knife to his throat and she's forgotten how to breathe. She's never been in a fight. Not against her own kind. Running is all she knows, all she's ever been good at. She's too short, too slow, too _weak_.

And he's about to die because of that.

Mistress laughs, a soft, lilting sound. She drags the tip of the blade down the curve of the Captain's throat, and presses down against a vein. She likes clean cuts that do not make a mess of her finely pressed suit jackets. She likes the cold tips of steel instead of teeth and claws. Crescent is sure that one of these days, Mistress will start using a straw to avoid splatter.

She's so caught up in her fears that Crescent doesn't catch Thorne's movements. Mistress Sybil, busy in her gloating doesn't see the poorly carved stake Thorne has hidden inside his sleeves. He turns around fast, faster than Crescent would have expected him to be able to, and slams his make-shift weapon past Sybil's ribs, just a breath away from her heart. He shoves the stake in deeper, using both hands, and every ounce of strength in him.

"Run!" Thorne yells. "Crescent, run!"

She wants to. She wants to. It's all she knows how to do. But she picks up the knife Mistress dropped.

And she fights.

-o-

They're surrounded—six of the Mistress' sired against the two of them.

"This looks very dire," Thorne comments drily.

Crescent whimpers. She'd wanted to die, once, in the first few years after the turning. She wants to live now. But the Universe has other plans.

-o-

She tastes ashes in her mouth, and blood in the air. His hand fumbles around for her until his fingertips brush against hers. Dying is a slow and painful process, even for the undead. She wishes she could just turn to dust instead. The stake burns hot against her heart.

He turns his head towards her and smiles. There's blood at the corner of his mouth. She never even got to kiss him.

"Not bad, I'd say," he tries to gesture at the six undead unmoving bodies around them. She tries to smile back. The knife is still in her hand. She watches him struggle for each breath. There's still an hour till sunrise. He stops breathing after three minutes.

She does not cry. She holds on to the knife, counting the seconds, and counting her laboured breaths, hoping that he'll forgive her someday, perhaps in a century or so.

-o-

He starts breathing again, twelve seconds after she's stopped.

-o-

He dreams of a ruined opera house and moonlight. He wakes up to the taste of blood in his mouth and the burn of sunlight on his skin. He screams. There are eight burnt shapes in the concrete, and he can't find Crescent anywhere.

-o-

He gets used to it after a while, being dead but not. He likes the speed, the strength, and even the taste of blood isn't half as bad as he though. Especially O positive. Yum.

The mild mind control powers are also extremely cool. And his hair has never looked better. He even has friends now. A cyborg, a somewhat unstable android, a werewolf and a trigger-happy hunter.

He misses a lot of things though. Like sunlight and solid food (especially ice cream) and body heat. He misses having a heartbeat. He misses having a reflection.

He misses _her._

-o-

He dreams of funny things, of lace and ribbons, and video games. He dreams of nothing sometimes. He dreams of wide blue eyes, and pale fingers tugging at his sleeves. For a whole decade he chases after honey blonde hair, and pretty singing voices.

It's never her.

It's _never_ her.

He's only chasing after a ghost.

In L.A. he finds someone like her. Kate Fallow has pretty, warm brown eyes. Clever, endearing Kate Fallow who bites her lip and blushes when he looks at her a certain way.

He feels so ridiculously guilty when he kisses her that he disappears that very night. Cinder finds him holed up all the way in Africa a month later and rolls her eyes so violently, he's surprised they don't fall out.

-o-

Scarlet keeps trying to set him up.

They're all pretty, bright, _wonderful_ girls. But he keeps finding himself looking for a blond head in crowds, and empty opera houses.

He has to keep himself from chasing after every glimpse of her (it's never _her_ ).

-o-

"Tell me about her," Scarlet asks one night as she nibbles at a slice of strawberry cake. They sit in a quaint little cafe Scarlet found in Paris during one of her hunts. She likes to drag him here as often as she's able. To "taste the air", she says. The only thing he wants the taste of is a nice throbbing vein, which, unfortunately isn't listed on the menu.

"She was cuter than you," Thorne offers.

Scarlet sighs. "And?"

He thinks about it. "Short. _Really_ short."

He spots a flash of yellow from the corner of his eyes, and on instinct his gaze follows. "About her height," he tilts his head towards the girl. Her hair is the same shade has Crescent's had been too, thought not nearly as long. Hers is cut to chin length. Her back is turned to them, and he wonders if her eyes are the right shape and size too.

He wants to go up to her and say hello, but he remains in his seat, counting his breaths, and her heartbeats.

Her heartbeats.

She's not Crescent. In a moment she'll turn and disappoint him. He waits for it.

-o-

She turns.

He forgets how to breathe.

~:~

 **This started out as part of my Cresswell one-shot collection, but it ended up escalating (though rather slowly, because I'm lazy and awful at updating on time), so I've had to move it to a fic of its own.**

 **There'll be five, maybe six chapters, and I might add a few side-stories later, since I've become quite attached, and I have a lot of headcanons based on this universe.**


	2. in my veins

**There's artwork I've done for this fic that you can find on my tumblr. I've left the link on my profile page.**

 **~:~**

 **II**

 **In my Veins**

* * *

 **Prompt:** _Oh, you're in my veins and I cannot get you out_

 _Oh, you're all I taste at night inside of my mouth._

* * *

He keeps coming back to the place he found her—the girl with the beating heart who looks like Crescent, but isn't. She can't be.

She comes to the café for the chocolate fondant. She comes every Friday, at about seven in the evening, with a portscreen in her hands and a tentative smile on her lips. She likes the corner table, tucked away behind a fern, ever so slightly separated from everyone else. She mostly likes coffee with her cake, but she orders tea once. Just once.

Cinder keeps reminding him he's creepy. _A stalker,_ she says. But he's never followed the girl, not to her home, not anywhere. He doesn't even know her name. (He doesn't want to call her Crescent. She isn't.) He wants to go over and talk to her. He wants to ask her for her name, he wants to ask her why she has _her_ face; but confusingly enough this is one girl he can't seem to approach.

Which is new.

So he just sits there, three tables away, every Friday, nursing a cappuccino he can't drink, being creepy. Sometimes he hopes she won't come back the next week. Sometimes he thinks he'd be utterly lost if this girl he doesn't know decides to get her cake from someplace else.

Still, it's a month, a whole month of listening to Cinder's taunts and Scarlet's laughter, until he finally, _finally_ walks up to Not-Crescent's table, slides up a chair and smiles at her, wide, just a touch away from flashing his canines. She blinks. Once. Twice.

"Hi," he says, and she starts to blush already. There is a bit of panic in her eyes. Her eyes, he notes, that are the same colour as Crescent's. _Aces._

"Hello," she mumbles, looking like she wants to hide behind her portscreen. Or under the table. He thinks that she would have too, had this not been such a public place. There's a multitude of things he wants to say, most of them wildly inappropriate.

"Is that any good?" he asks instead, pointing towards her half-finished fondant.

-o-

He had read somewhere that hope was once held inside a jar. He's held hope under skin and under fingernails, he's had hope dug into his bones and laced into his borrowed blood. He's held hope in every artificial breath. Inside all the hollow spaces in him.

She looks just the same as she always did, but different at the same time. He blinks and she has long hair. He blinks again and her hair is short. She moves the same way too, smiles the same way, bites her lip the same way. He wonders if she can crack security systems just as efficiently. There's this one museum that has the best collection of second era paintings…

He kisses her knuckles as he introduces himself. She turns a deep, rich colour like Scarlet's hair and looks about to swoon.

"So, what's _your_ name?" he asks.

It's not her.

It's _not_ her.

It's never her.

"Cress," she says.

In his mind he sees a small person-shaped scorch mark in the concrete beside him. In his mind, he's screaming a different, yet same name.

"Cress," he repeats, testing the sound of it on his tongue, twisting the syllable around lazily. "I like it."

-o-

She's most definitely, ridiculously, unnervingly human. If he had any suspicious before, they all wither away now. Everything from her working heart to her smell is human. It does not matter that everything else about her is absolutely Crescent.

At least it shouldn't.

"What do you think her blood type is?" he asks Scarlet as she instructs him on how manual liftoffs work on his ship. She lost him somewhere at...uh, probably the very beginning. He's fairly certain though that if he presses all the switches, turns some dials he'll get _something_ right at some point. Flying can't be all that difficult.

Scarlet pinches him.

"Ow. What was that for? I'm only curious!" He pauses. "What's _your_ blood type?"

Scarlet leans towards him and smiles. "Poisoned," she tells him.

-o-

Being dead does not mean he doesn't dream. He dreams often. He dreams of Crescent. He dreams of Cress.

He's alive in his dreams. She's not. "Do you think you could ever love me back?" she asks him solemnly, as if she already knows the answer, anticipates it, braces for it. He can feel it in the quiver of her voice, the slight tremble in her lower lip.

The sky is honey-coloured like her hair. Shafts of light break through the shattered ceiling, through the cracks on the walls. Crescent sits by the shadows, holds them to her like they're her friends, like they're her safety blanket.

He doesn't know how to answer her, and he never gets to.

-o-

Wolf catches him trying to steal Scarlet's hover. Well, borrow. He just wants to go see Cinder in New Beijing for a while. Public transport just isn't him and comming her his problems isn't quite the same as following her around and badgering her in person. It's so much more difficult for her to ignore him then.

And Iko sometimes has very wise input.

"I hope you remember what happened last time," Wolf says, leaning casually against the hangar door. He's smiling like he enjoys threatening people...which, he probably does.

"I do, yes."

"If you scratch the ship again this time," Wolf informs him, "Scarlet plans to inject you with holy water in your sleep."

"Aw," Thorne places a hand over his heart like he's touched by the sentiment. "That's sweet, but really, she doesn't have to."

-o-

Cinder gives him a once over. "No," she says. If there was a door to her little stall in the market, she would probably have slammed it on his face.

He sighs and climbs inside over the table. "Just hear me out."

"You have the worst ideas, Thorne."

"Hey, my last idea got Iko her amazing new body." He winks. The android giggles. Cinder looks unimpressed.

"It also got us arrested."

"Right. Well, it'll be different this time. I just heard about this gorgeous second-era jade necklace..."

Cinder makes a face. "No." She picks up a screwdriver and starts opening up an ancient-looking android laid out on her worktable.

"Please?"

"Why are you here anyway?" she fiddles with some wires, does some mechanic-y stuff. It all eludes him; especially the irregular sparks that splutter every now and then. Those look very distressing to him, but don't seem to bother Cinder in the least.

"What about that poor girl you've been terrorising? Did you ask her out yet?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Did she throw her coffee in your face and kick you some place not nice?" she snicks at her terrible joke.

"That's horrible!" Iko gasps. "She sounded like such a nice person when you talked about her before."

"She _is_ nice," Thorne says. "And she said yes."

Iko sighs in relief, then perks up. "So, is it _her,_ her? Is she really Crescent?"

"I don't know. Her name is Cress," Thorne says, sounding a little glum. "She's _human_ , and she doesn't remember me."

"Sounds like a lucky girl," mumbles Cinder.

-o-

He goes back to Paris the next night. There is a huge dent in Scarlet's hover, so he locks himself in the Rampion until he can be sure she won't try to poison him. His portscreen chimes every few minutes. All angry threatening comms.

He pours himself a glass of B positive and settles down on the Captain's chair.

"How is she _human?"_ he asks to no one in particular.

"Apologies," his ship says, "I do not compute."

Thorne sighs, and massages his forehead. "Oh Darla, I don't compute either."

-o-

He takes Cress to a fancy restaurant where she looks enormously uncomfortable, until he starts reading off the menu in his snootiest voice. He aches when she laughs, because he hasn't heard that sound in so long, he had almost forgotten it.

It's a cold night, and his jacket nearly swallows her up as he drapes it around her. She lets him walk her home and he winds his fingers through hers, marvelling at the warmth of her that had never been there before. He wonders vaguely how creepy she would think him if he took her to the lonely ruins of an opera house on their next date. On her doorsteps, he kisses her cheek, leaving a flutter of icy current to consume her daydreams.

He waves at her before he turns around a corner and disappears into the shadows. She stands there, outside her door, cold now without the warmth of his jacket, and shivers at a strange feeling of déjà vu.

-o-

He pours himself some A negative when he's back in the Rampion. He wandered around the city for a while, aimless and confused, until the sun was nearly up. He doesn't know what he's doing with Cress. Cress, who is not Crescent. Cress who is an art student and probably doesn't know anything about vampires or SQL injections or disabling motion detectors.

He takes a sip of the blood and turns on his portscreen. There's a comm from Cinder among the hundred and twenty six threats from Scarlet.

 **Mechanic: There are reports of a stolen second-era jade necklace from an auction house.** _ **What did you do?**_

Oops.

 **Captain: ...nothing?**

 **Mechanic: THORNE!**

 **Captain: What? It looked lonely by itself. Now, it can keep my art collection company.**

 **Mechanic:** _ **Thorne!**_

This isn't what he wants to discuss though. The necklace was just a whim. Something to occupy his mind because otherwise all he would think about is a certain fair-haired, blue-eyed girl. He feels a tingle creep up his toes as he takes another swig of his drink.

 **Captain: What do I do about Cress?**

 **Mechanic: Don't change the subject!**

 **Captain: But she's** _ **human!**_

 **Captain: And I think she likes me.**

 **Captain: And she's** _ **exactly**_ **like Crescent.**

 **Captain: But she's HUMAN.**

 **Mechanic: Have you been drinking addicts again?**

 **Captain: That was ONE TIME!**

And also an accident. But he'd ended up selling Wolf to a shady pet store owner, stealing an escort droid, marrying himself, and vandalising the New Beijing Palace. Naked.

Cinder was absolutely livid. She grounded, _actually grounded_ him for a year. Something which he couldn't for the undead life of him understand, seeing as his antics had landed her in sights of the dreamy Prince of the Eastern Commonwealth. Sure, it probably didn't leave the best impression, being associated with, well, a naked vandal (who claimed to be Picasso) but Prince Dreamy seemed quite smitten with Cinder anyway.

He hiccups, and the room sways.

 **Mechanic: Sure.**

 **Captain: ...I feel a little funny though.**

 **Captain: ...tingly.**

 **Captain: And the walls are so pretty.**

They are. They're the colour of happiness and giggles. Of summer heat, and sundresses. Of flavours, and time, and memories. Cress's lips, and Crescent's voice. Of chocolate cake. Of poison.

 **Captain: You're so pretty.**

 **Captain: And I'm so pretty.**

 **Captain: And she's so human.**

It's painful how human she is. And impossible.

 **Captain: Cinder!**

 **Captain: Cinder Cinder Cinder Cinder Cinder Cinder Cinder Cinder!**

The air tastes like starlight. He gulps the rest of his blood and smells a strange smell. Like gunpowder and flowers.

 **Captain: My blood of glass smells weird.**

 **Captain: Bloody glass.**

 **Captain: Or glassy blood?**

He dissolves into a fit of giggles. He's so funny, and witty, and charming, and amazing, and oh. Oh no.

 **Captain: I think Scarlet put something in my A negative.**

-o-

He wakes up with crippling headache, and Crescent looking down at him with worry creasing her brow. He groans, and passes out again.

-o-

He dreams, or maybe be remembers. Snow against the sky, under his shoes, on her cheek; she laughs, a giggle really, as her fingers play with her hair. She says something, something inconsequential, something funny. He can't remember what, and her words melt away like the snow.

Her eyes widen as he says something back, and she makes a small, adorable mouse-like noise at the back of her throat. Her lips are almost blue, her skin as cold as ice. Her teeth so, so sharp. There is a curve of innocence in the tilt of her chin, a trace of hunger in her eyes.

She looks like she could be made out of marble, another statue in this hall of ruins that is her home. She looks like she could be made out of eternity.

She closes her eyes, and leans against a pillar. And she hums.

The sound echoes though the empty spaces, through the broken hall, though the dream, and winds itself though soft words spoken in sunlight... _sweet crescent moon, up in the—_

He wakes up with a start.

"...sky. You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by..."

His head threatens to split into two and his eyes feel like they're on fire. He groans and curls into a ball. The singing stops.

Whatever Scarlet had put into his blood was evil. Absolute evil. He tentatively cracks and eye open.

She sits on a large swivel chair, legs pulled up, face half-buried behind a portscreen, staring at him, wide-eyed and a little distressed. "Hi," he says, sounding liked he died and was just brought back. Cress waves at him hesitantly. Her eyes go back to the portscreen, then to him.

"Your records say that you're forty six years old," she says, quietly, as if she's in shock. He gulps.

"Yeah," he tries to laugh. "Well—I use this amazing face cream."

-o-

He's not sure how to explain himself. He doesn't want to say _vampire_ right off the bat and freak her out. Well, she already looks very much freaked out. He doesn't want to freak her out _more._

He notices his surroundings then. It's not a room he recognises. The walls are lavender, the floor is tiled. There are easels and paint all over the place, but also what looks like, _whoa,_ invisi-screens all over the place (lit up and paused at some sort of video game). He's laid out on a couch, a flower-patterned blanked draped over him. His right arm is bandaged. He sits up, slowly, because Cress seems frightened. But also because his head is threatening to split into two and fly off into the sun.

She looks like she's holding a question at the tip of her tongue. He has an idea what it might be.

"Your apartment?" he asks, turning his head around tentatively to take a better look. It's pretty, if a bit messy.

She stares at him for a long moment before she registers the question and nods.

"How did I—?"

"You, um...you rang the bell, and then you passed out. So, I, uh..." she gestured vaguely at him. "You were also...a bit burnt..." she trails off into unsure silence.

Ah, so that's what the bandage is about. He doesn't really need it. He's a fast healer. _Really_ fast healer.

"I'm sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else he can say. He's awed by her. She could have left him in the sun. Anyone else might have. No, instead, she dragged his sorry ass inside, bandaged him, and let him sleep on her couch. He remembers cold, gentle fingers cleaning his cuts, wrapping him in gauze. But that was a lifetime ago.

Cress nods again.

"Are you—" she starts to ask, but bites her lip. She takes a deep breath. "What are you?"

Her voice is quiet, and rightfully frightened. Vampires isn't treated any better than cyborgs, or the weres. Fear and disgust are the default reactions, and it's not an unfair reaction either. His kind isn't the friendliest. Not when everyone else is a food source. Crescent had been something of an anomaly, and he supposes he's one too. It's not that there aren't others like them; it's that most vampires are like what Sybil Mira had been.

Cress doesn't look disgusted yet, but it'll come. He knows it will. This is not how he saw this conversation going. He'd actually never thought this far, so very preoccupied over how this girl walked, talked, even _sneezed_ like someone he'd once lov—known. Known. Someone he'd once known. Mm-hmm.

He shifts uncomfortably, and casts a quick glance towards the windows. Just in case she has some holy water or something hidden behind her and he has to make a quick getaway. It feels like about eight pm, so there's a long while until sunrise.

"I'm, well, I might be a bit...undead."

"Oh," she says. Her fingers tighten around her portscreen, her knuckles turning white. "Oh."

"Cress?" he says, gently, carefully.

"Yes?"

"I won't hurt you," he feels like he has to clarify. She has all rights to be scared, though he wishes, (wishes so hard it hurts) she won't be, but he needs her to know that he would never, ever hurt her. Not her.

Her heart hammers away nonetheless, like a cornered animal. He wants to move closer, wants to reassure her, over and over again until she understands. Instead, he stands up, and steps back, away from her. His head protests at the movement, still thumping away. _What did Scarlet dose him with?_

"I will never hurt you," he repeats. "I actually haven't hurt anyone yet. I have surprising self-control. I've only drunk from people...hmm, thrice I think. Yup. Thrice. And not killed a single person. That's an amazing track record. Ask anyone. There should be medals for this..."

She takes a while. She looks a bit like she's still in shock, but he's weary to get a closer look. "Okay," she finally says. He can't quite decipher from her expression whether she really believes him or not, but her grip on the portscreen loosens slightly.

"How did you access my records, by the way?" Cinder and Iko did some fiddling for him, a while back, so that his real records were hidden away behind lots of codes and stuff that he doesn't quite understand. His current id chip and records are heavily tempered with. But clearly Cress has _invisi-screens_ and Crescent's skills along with her face, and her laugh, and her adorable lip-bites, and head tilts. The only difference he's found between the two is a working heart, a reflection, and mortality. Oh, and a new haircut.

"It wasn't that hard," Cress says.

"That isn't very reassuring," he laughs. "You should know, I can't have people knowing I'm practically ancient. I have a reputation to uphold."

Cress presses her lips together to hold back a smile. "You're okay. I only found your records because I knew what I was looking for. I mean, I was _specifically_ looking for them, and because I knew your surface records were forged."

"Yeah," he says sheepishly, "I should probably not call on people during daytime, half-burnt and delirious, huh?"

"Why did you?"

"It wasn't intentional," he assures. "My friend drugged me."

She looks horrified.

"It's okay; she only did it because I trashed her hover."

-o-

They fall into something comfortable and familiar, yet foreign. As her guards slowly ease, Cress asks more and more questions, her curiosity is cautious, but seemingly unquenchable. He answers everything with a little amusement, and some anxiety, careful not to bring up Crescent. He's not ready to open that can of worms yet.

Instead he tells her about his friends; about Cinder and Iko, Scarlet and Wolf. He tells her about Darla too, tells her a somewhat modified version of how he stole her, and some of his other misadventures over the years. She tells him about her eccentric friend and the constant hunts she keeps getting dragged into for the perfect candy apples.

"They _have_ to be 'as red as blood'," Cress says with a laugh. "Or there'll be a war."

He wants to bottle her laughter, and take it home with him. He wants to trace the line of her nose as she yawns, and taste the blush on her cheeks.

"I should go," he says, but his voice is a whisper, spoken only a breath away from her lips. They have been leaning closer and closer to each other all night with every word they've spoken, every giggle, every smile, every breath—artificial and alive. He could touch her, if only he dares. He could kiss her.

She gulps. He can feel the heat of her skin, the beat of her heart, the thrum of her blood.

"See you on Saturday?" he asks. That's supposed to be their second date. But she knows what he is now, so...

She nods. He grins, and leans in to press a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. Her breath hitches, but when she's blinked, he's gone.

Her visions blurs for the space of a second, and the slow sway of her drapes seem like heavy crimson curtains from some sort of a ruined, broken hall.

-o-

There is a new comm from Scarlet and it's the first one that's not a threat.

 **Red: So, how was your day, dear?**

He replies back with every French expletive he knows.

-o-

Saturday is an eternity away. And lazy comms fill the space in between. He sends her funny pictures, and great existential questions about the anatomy of pigeons. She sends him snaps of her art, song recommendations, and puns.

He forwards everything to Cinder with accompanying text in capital letters, lots of exclamation marks, and excited emojis.

Cress reads, and re-reads all his message and goes to sleep with a smile on her lips.

-o-

He forgets about the little painted masterpiece on the side of the Rampion.

"Uh, that was already there when I got her," he says.

Cress tries to hide her smile behind her hair. "She's pretty," she says. He's not sure if she means the naked silhouette, or his ship. Although _pretty_ isn't the word he would use for the Rampion. Gorgeous, maybe. Breathtaking, amazing, incredible, beautiful, absolutely stunning—the greatest ship in the skies. But, yeah, she's pretty too.

Cress is fascinated by Darla, fascinated by the controls, the inner-workings, the whole system. Her mouth is half-open, her eyes bright and excited. Her whole being buzzes for the need to touch and explore. He catches her fingers twitching as she brushes along the controls, craving to take a peek inside the integrated computers.

"Go ahead," he nudges, and she makes a half-yelp sort of noise at the back of her throat, and then quickly brings her hands to cover her mouth in surprise. He chuckles and leads her to the Captain's chair.

"Can you fly?" she asks.

He remembers a promise from long ago and his chest aches. "Yeah," he says. "A little. But the Rampion was...acquired through, uh, _creative_ means, and I've wiped her clean, so we can certainly take off anytime you want, but the moment we hit Earth's atmosphere again, we'll be caught."

Cress looks disappointed for the whole of three seconds, before her expression transforms into concentration, and then to something he hasn't seen in her before. She pulls up the main screen, and starts typing furiously.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Something..." she bits her lip and looks up at him, "creative."

-o-

He does not think that he'll ever stop being constantly amazed by Cress. She is cute, she is kind, she can sing, can paint, can beat him at video games. She also likes puns, and she can _divert satellites._

His takeoff is a bit rocky, but once the stabilizers take hold they're good. Cress makes no depraving comment at his flying skills like Cinder or Scarlet. She keeps her eyes peeled on the skies and hums an old lullaby.

He's so busy congratulating himself on his first successful takeoff with the Rampion that he doesn't notice that he knows this song.

-o-

The view, oh the view is _incredible._ Impossible.

Earth is lights, lights, and lights. Dots like fireflies map out the continents, winking and blinking at them. The sun is on the other side, and for this moment he's safe, and he's with _her._

She looks like a fairy tale, pale and soft and golden. She looks like hope, if it were a person. His fingers find hers, and he pulls her close. He tucks a stand of her hair back because she allows it, which still amazes him. She must know that his fridge is mostly full of blood bags.

Her eyes flutter down to his lips, and back up to his eyes. She blushes oh so prettily, it's almost a sin. He holds the moment because it feels precious. She lets him, for the space of eight seconds that tick away as if they are nothing.

And then she tries to step away, starts babbling something incoherent, something just to fill the silence, to feel less embarrassed, less awkward. He hears her heart stutter, can feel her fingers loosen from his. He feels a sudden panic well up. In his mind, she's already leaving (as if she was never there, as if he'd been dreaming all this time).

It can't be healthy, but he feels he'll be driven mad in her absence again. He tugs her back, not sharply, but certainly. Her babble slows to a stutter before it stops altogether as he leans down and kisses her.

-o-

He wonders if she loves him back yet.

-o-

She can't sleep that night. When she closes her eyes she sees a million stars, feels his lips on hers again, coaxing, insistent. When she gasps, his tongue finds its way into her mouth and she groans. She remembers his hands, his cool, steady palms, holding her secure for a moment before trailing up, up, up and entangling in her hair.

She remembers the look on his face before he kissed her, and the look on his face after. She remembers how words, _all_ words had left her, all coherent thought, and how she had stood on up tip toes and kissed him again. And again. And _stars..._

She can't sleep.

-o-

He comms her at three am wondering about bees.

She replies back almost immediately.

-o-

 **Mechanic: Stop forwarding me all your sappy conversations.**

 **Captain: I'll think about it.**

 **Captain: But isn't Cress AMAZING?**

 **Mechanic: Don't you have people to terrorize? Children to steal from?**

 **Captain: That was** _ **one time!**_

-o-

 **Red: Thorne and Cress sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.**

 **Captain: Actually it was on the Rampion.**

-o-

 **Iko: That's so romantic!**

 **Iko: What happened next?**

 **Captain: She said that dragons probably don't have belly buttons either.**

-o-

 **Username: No.**

 **Captain: You say that about everything.**

-o-

He doesn't expect her to remember the person her met inside a forgotten ruin a lifetime ago. He's not even sure if she's the same person. But he loves her still. He knows this. He knows with every certainty.

-o-

And he grows afraid.

Time is still for him because she smeared her eternity on him and burned away. And she doesn't have her forever anymore.

-o-

He does not know that she's been drawing opera houses and moonlit streets for a while now. She draws old faces. People who are long gone, whom she had known once upon a time. She paints a beautiful face—sharp and cruel, and she shivers because it scares her.

She signs a name in the corner of all her new paintings, and it's not 'Cress'. She hums songs she's never heard, and she recalls warmth in the touches of one undead Captain.

She wakes up with a scream stuck on her throat. She cries for reasons she isn't aware. When she asks her friend, her ethereal, eccentric friend if she's going mad, Winter smiles at a china vase and shakes her head.

"You're remembering," she tells the flowers.

-o-

Cress dreams.

She dreams she's a phoenix.

-o-

Late one afternoon, Thorne gets a comm from her.

 **Damsel: I remember dying.**

~:~


	3. dream a little dream

**For the tireless, and encouraging Megan the Lunar.**

 **~:~**

 **III**

 **Dream a Little Dream**

* * *

 **Prompt (by anon) :** _Dance me to your beauty like a burning violin_

 _Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in_

* * *

Sometimes she feels a funny prickle in her skin and an old ache in her teeth. She feels herself craving for something she can't define, and sometimes, for the blink of a moment, she feels like someone else.

(Someone lost and broken. Someone sad, and dead.)

He takes her to her old home, and watches her twirl around the haunted echo of her past. Her fingers flutter across the cracks and the curtains, the mud and the moss—a gentle, butterfly caress, as she closes her eyes and transports herself to another life; a life that was half a dream, and half a nightmare.

It feels very unreal in moments of noise. Like it's a tall tale of someone else's pain. All those things she remembers—the little frightened girl, stolen from her parents, groomed by a monster, and turned into something...fragmented—that doesn't feel like her. But in quiet, solitary moments, she's a ghost drenched in blood, she's Mistress' Sybil's pet project, she's a confused, afraid girl. She's something to be afraid of.

She had been a lot of things, a lot of terrible things before a lost boy had stumbled into her frozen, broken world, and while he takes her to remember the parts of her that were kinder, she remembers the Crescent who was something very different.

-o-

Winter strokes Cress's hair and coos comforting nonsense to her as the soft human thing dreams of sorrow and shadows.

She wonders how the window panes can sing, and how her pretty, pretty Crescent burst into flames and came back so fragile. Her friend is no longer made of marble and thirst, but sunlight and blood instead, wrapped in time, moved by it, changing, changing every day.

She has no eternity, but she has a future.

Winter hums along with the window panes and pretends she can't see the walls weeping or the new comm in her portscreen. It's from a boy with a smile like the summer sun. _They're looking for her_ , the message reads.

-o-

He can tell that she's being haunted by her own ghost, can tell that she hasn't been sleeping as much as she should. There's something sad lingering in the air around her, in her breath, and in the corner of her smile.

Thorne wonders who Crescent had been before he had come crashing into her second era ruins. He wonders what kind of nightmares she had lived and seen, what had been so bad that it's following her a whole lifetime later. He wonders but he doesn't ask.

Instead he kisses the sorrow lingering in her mouth and warps his cold fingers around the warmth of hers and takes her to the other side of the world to fence a painting that had been lying around in storage for a couple of decades. They buy an enormous stuffed panda and make an anonymous donation to a charity they let Darla pick. It's not really his style, giving away his "hard-earned" money to people who need it more, but being around Cress, he thinks he wouldn't mind it if this is who he becomes.

They fly the Rampion through restricted airspace and laugh at the exhilarating feel of it.

-o-

Cinder watches Cress fiddle with her hair and twist the edges of her clothes, half-hidden behind Thorne. Her voice is soft, her words are a stammer, while her eyes roam in fascination around Cinder's shabby marketplace booth. She's a bit strange, this girl, a bit uncertain of her own self, a bit afraid of everything, but Cinder likes her anyway. Likes the kindness in her irises, the brightness in her held breath.

Iko, though, absolutely _loves_ her. She holds Cress's hand in hers and asks her a hundred questions excitedly, all the while fawning over her hair and gushing over her dress. She looks like she's barely holding herself back from wrapping Cress in the tightest silicone and metal hug.

"Did you steal Scarlet's hover again?" Cinder asks Thorne absently. "You know she'll probably kill you this time around."

"I may be reckless," Thorne says, "but I'm not suicidal." She thinks she hears him mumble _never again_ under his breath.

Cinder has heard quite a lot about Crescent's hacking skills from Thorne. She's actually heard too much about Crescent from Throne, but now as she listens about tiny, mousey Cress manipulating satellites and creating a sort of bubble of invisibility for something so large, (and haphazardly piloted) as the Rampion, Cinder is rather impressed.

-o-

The moon looks too large and unreal from space. Cress presses her fingertips against the glass window and tries to forget all about Crescent.

-o-

Scarlet invites herself inside the Rampion, as if she was the one who had stolen it. She picks at the dust, helps herself to the only edible thing in the fridge, and laughs when Thorne nearly trips, then scrambles to find a weapon.

"Mademoiselle," Thorne says drily.

"Captain," Scarlet says with a mouth full of ice cream and a lazy salute.

-o-

Friendship is a strange, warm concept. Like bottled sunlight.

Crescent had seen the pretty, flighty girl hover in the corners around Mistress Sybil's guard for as long as she had known the Mistress. She was like a playful shadow, teasing, taunting, filling all the silent spaces with flutters of giggles. There was blood on her lips, and a wicked sparkle in her eyes.

Winter was Crescent's first friend.

Now, with Scarlet's warm arm around her, being told she's way to good for the likes of Thorne, Cress remembers Cinder telling her something along the same lines, and Iko's grafted skin slide along her palm, and she feels a prickle behind her eyes and bottled sunlight warm her lungs.

-o-

 **Mechanic: I like Cress.**

 **Mechanic: Don't do anything stupid.**

 **Captain: When have I ever done anything stupid?**

 **Mechanic: Well...**

 **Captain: DON'T ANSWER THAT.**

 **Captain: Wait, is this...the shovel talk?**

 **Mechanic: It might be.**

 **Captain: Shouldn't you be having this conversation with Cress?**

 **Mechanic: She's nice girl. If she breaks your heart, you probably deserve it.**

 **Captain: You only just met her!**

 **Captain: Whose friend** _ **are**_ **you?**

-o-

While all his friends take an immediate shine to Cress—which really, isn't surprising—Cress's reactions, Thorne notices, tends to vary from person to person. Iko is the easiest to get along with. Cress is less reserved with her, and Thorne isn't the least bit surprised that they start comming each other almost immediately.

With Cinder, Cress is a little hesitant, though they like each other well enough (Cinder certainly _loves_ Cress if her comms to him have anything to say), but Cinder can come off as hostile and scary even when she's in her nicest and kindest behaviour. It must be her grease stains that are the put off, Thorne guesses. Or all that sarcasm constantly oozing from her. Or her terrible attempts at humour. Or her refusal to admit how amazing he is.

It's probably the last thing.

What really baffles Thorne is that Cress likes Scarlet. She really, honestly likes Scarlet. Scarlet, who is actually scary and hostile and perhaps even a little psycho. Scarlet who always, always carries a weapon on her person, who says incredibly inappropriate things (like that time she told Cress she could find someone better than him for her), who steals his food and breaks into his home. Scarlet, who is basically terrifying as hell.

Yet, Cress likes her. She isn't even pretending!

She goes shopping with Scarlet, and to breakfasts and lunches (and all that daytime stuff that he can't go to) with Scarlet. And more often than not, he finds her on the farm, painting in the porch, or running from the chicken.

She also spends a whole lot of energy avoiding and hiding from Wolf.

That, though understandable, is hilarious to Thorne. Because while he certainly looks like he could crush boulders with his bare hands and wrestle elephants, Wolf is really a marshmallow, who spends an awful lot of time running from the geese.

Cress finds this out soon enough when they both end up hiding from the poultry in the hangar, while Thorne laughs and laughs and laughs until he has to lie down.

-o-

Thorne starts to think he's been friends with all the wrong people when he meets Winter. She pats his head and offers him a candy apple ("as red as the blood on the walls, do you see?").

"Keep him," she tells Cress. "I like him."

Yeah, he's been friends with all the wrong people

-o-

Cress falls asleep with the ghost of Thorne's kiss on her lips and half-lucid wonderings if she should ask for her eternity back.

-o-

She dreams of teeth and needles, and wakes up late for class. There's a slow pounding behind her eyes, and at the base of her skull, and all day she feels pinpricks in her veins.

When she closes her eyes, Mistress Sybil smiles at her as she injects something burning, and coos nonsense about silver and cures.

-o-

"Do you miss it?" she asks Thorne on a Sunday.

They're sitting on Scarlet's porch, two hours after sunset, just counting stars and talking about things that don't matter.

"Miss what?" he says.

Cress bites her lip, taking a peek at his face, then looking back up at the sky. He's staring at her in this strange intense way she's noticed he does sometimes, like he's contemplating whether she's real or not.

"Everything," she says. "Breathing and things. Eating. Hurting. Aging."

He doesn't answer her for a long time.

There's a clamour in the hangar. Cinder and Iko are here too, in one of their rare visits, and Scarlet has let them tinker with her hover (much to Thorne's indignation), and Winter is somewhere about as well. Last Cress saw of her was when Winter was stroking Scarlet's hair, humming unhappy songs while Scarlet looked like she wanted to bolt.

Winter tends of have that effect on people.

"Yes," Thorne finally sighs. "All the time."

-o-

She wants to tell him about the nightmares, she really does. She just doesn't know where to begin. She has mentioned some of her dreams, the ones she remembers about him...about them. But all the parts of Crescent that belonged to Mistress Sybil, all the blood, and the hurt, and the hunger, those dreams she keeps to herself.

It scares her. Crescent scares her.

So, instead she tentatively threads her fingers around his as they watch the slow dance of the stars, and tells him about this life of hers. Of a childhood she barely remembers, about her foster parents who never call anymore, about Winter, and art school, and chocolate fondant Fridays.

She fears her voice will waver or break soon enough, but it doesn't.

-o-

 **Captain: I found some O positive at the bottom of my fridge! I thought I was all out.**

 **Damsel: Oh.**

 **Damsel: Captain?**

 **Captain: Yes?**

 **Damsel: B positive tastes better.**

 **Captain: ...**

 **Captain: ...**

 **Captain:** _ **Excuse me?**_

-o-

"You're cheating," Thorne accuses vehemently. "I know you're cheating."

All three active invisi-screens declare Cress as the winner for the twenty-sixth time. Thorne had downloaded this game the previous month and he'd been practicing with Darla for what he's sure has been at least twelve years. So, either Cress's version of the game of rigged or faulty, or Cress is cheating.

There's no other explanation.

"Or maybe you're just _really_ bad at this," Wolf tells him from his seat beside Scarlet on the couch. They're watching some stupid documentary, glued together like one entity, eating from the same bowl. Disgusting.

Thorne makes a face. "She's cheating," he insists.

Cress does that lip bite thing she does to hide her smiles sometimes, which he usually finds very cute, but he's lost for the _twenty-sixth_ time and _stars above,_ cheaters are not supposed to be so very adorable!

Wolf gives him a _look._

"Fine," Thorne says, "why don't you give it a try? You'll see what I'm talking about."

Wolf laughs. Actually laughs at him.

-o-

Half an hour later, he isn't laughing anymore.

Wolf looks up at the screens, then down at Cress, then up at the screens again and narrows his eyes.

"You're cheating," he declares.

Scarlet starts laughing, until she falls down from her seat. And then she laughs some more.

-o-

He can hear the rush of hovers and wind past her open balcony door, can hear the soft din of a thousand voices. If he tried to, he could count all the beating hearts and all the dead ones in a certain radius, depending on his concentration.

He's sitting on Cress's cool, tiled floor, leaning against the doorframe to her balcony, and she's all the way across on the other side, doing that lip bite and humming thing he's noticed she does when she paints, and it's all his mind can grasp at in this moment. She'd wanted to do a simple line sketch of him, but when she'd reached for her brushes and watercolours with an apologetic scrunch of her eyebrows, he hadn't wanted to protest anyway.

So, he had let her paint him; in shades of blue and purple and grey, with moonlight on his hair and shadows at his feet.

When she's done, she stares at her sketchbook for a long while before she walks up to him and sits down against the wall, legs pressed together, hands almost touching. He nudges her with his foot. She takes another moment and a deep breath before she hands him her painting to evaluate.

"Cress," he says, then pauses; a deep breath. "Only you can make me handsomer than I already am."

-o-

They dance as they orbit around the moon, bare feet, clumsy steps, letting the hum of the Rampion creep up their toes to all their veins.

Darla plays them the best songs, all the slow ones in all the right moments, and fast ones when Cress just feels like twirling and whirling and falling away. He catches her before she hurts herself, and they laugh as if they were drunk.

-o-

She kisses him at her door, cheeks blazing red, fingers twitching to tug at a distraction.

He holds his breath because she doesn't kiss him often, and when she does, she scares easy, ready to jump away and hide under tables, if there are any nearby (there was an instance). Her kisses, all her kisses are like the first: soft, tentative, on tip toes. They're like cotton candy, airy and light, the melt-in-your-mouth sort of kisses. The kind that leaves an ache in your throat and in your chest, like a cold. But it's a welcome ache, a sweet, haunting ache.

He brushes a thumb across her cheek, takes her face in his hands and kisses her deep.

(His kisses are like goodbyes, because he never got to say it the first time.)

He whispers something across her lips, but she only catches a "you", and because he kisses her again (breathless) she doesn't get to ask him what it was.

-o-

She has dreamt of burning a hundred times, so much so that some mornings she wakes up believing she's nothing but ashes.

Tonight, she dreams of cold spaces. And water. She dreams she's drowning, trapped inside a glass case, while Mistress Sybil stands just out of reach, smiling. There are words and numbers circling outside the glass: a holographic marquee.

It takes her a moment to read the reversed text. Her mind feels thinned out already, and clouded over, as minds in dreams tend to be. She won't feel the gravity of the words until she's woken up.

TEST SUBJECT #0036

~:~


	4. safe and sound

**A note on this universe's history:**

 **a) There are no lunars here, and as such, no letumosis.**

 **b) Which means Emperor Rikan is still alive. This gives Kai opportunity to be a little reckless and carefree (or maybe a lot. Oops). I realise that I'd called him Emperor previously but I've fixed that. Apologies on the mix up.**

 **c) Unfortunately Garan and Peony are still dead. I'll touch on the 'why's and the 'how's when I get to Levana in the story.**

 **d) Scarlet's grandmother is also dead. Killed by werewolves.**

 **~:~**

 **IV**

 **Safe and sound**

* * *

 **Prompt** : Home

* * *

She's five when Mistress Sybil steals her; all large eyes, knobby knees, and so very scared.

Mistress smiles at her kindly. For the first week, Crescent receives a lot of kind smiles. Mistress's voice is soft and sharp at the same time. Her fingers are chills and stings as she strokes Crescent's hair, runs her index finger down the side of her face, tips her chin up. Mistress Sybil has impatience, and red-rimmed eyes, and tight, kind smiles. She has a dagger in her coat, and pointy teeth behind her lips.

With each day Mistress smiles at Crescent, she forgets a bit about herself. In a month, can't remember the sound of her father's voice, or the exact way her mother used to laugh. Can't remember if she had a sister or a dream. A little more time and she forgets how she got the scar on her ankle. She forgets all the family trips, all the little fights, all the laughter. She forgets the bad days, and all the good ones. She forgets a cat with lazy golden eyes.

She forgets little Crescent Moon Darnel.

(And she can't remember if she was ever loved.)

-o-

Hurried footsteps, tripped alarms. Their hands are clasped together as they run with lights and androids behind them. Turns out visiting museums after hours to ignore "Do Not Touch" signs and return a previously 'misplaced' item makes quite the experience.

They sneak back later so Cress can wipe the security feeds.

-o-

The more time they spend in New Beijing, the more Cress warms up to Cinder. And with Thorne being able to fly the Rampion (in the loosest definition of the word) now, they pop by quite often. Thorne sometimes shows up without Cress as well, much to Cinder's exasperation. But she always lets him climb up over her worktable and into her shop anyway, to fiddle with her tools and dramatically recite his woes in "life".

He always comes by on market days. At first he'd said it was to charm her some customers, but really it's because he cannot stand Adri and Pearl. Or, as Thorne puts it, 'those awful people living in your apartment.' He keeps telling her to get rid of them (with much support from Iko), unwilling to understand how guardianship works.

On a Thursday, Cinder sends Thorne off to buy a Gen C portscreen motherboard for her ("And pay for it this time. You cannot steal things that can be traced back to me _._ Are you listening?"). If he must hang around like a fart, he should at least make himself useful.

Cress very happily helps her recode crashed portscreens and androids, sometimes adding a new app or a perk that wasn't there before, boosting functionality and performance. Sometimes she adds games. Cinder has half a mind to keep her for herself, that is, if Cress would like to quit art school and recode broken things for very little money. Not likely.

"New helper?"

Cinder and Cress both jump at the voice. Cress scrambles away to the back, away from the line of sight as fast as Cinder's fingers reach to check that her gloves are pulled up all the way.

"Your majesty," Cinder says, standing up, for once. Kai seems surprised for a second. He usually catches her without her foot. She's surprised too.

She reaches up to brush her hair off her face, leaving a smear of grease on her cheek.

Kai smiles, wide and crinkly "Linh-mei."

-o-

He's asking her to the ball. The Prince is asking Cinder to the ball!

Or, at least that's what Cress thinks is happening. She can't hear everything from the back, behind all these androids and broken bits and bobs, but from Iko's very tight grip on her arm and the not-quite quiet squeals Iko's trying to hold in, she's probably right.

He likes Cinder, Cress can tell. He's leaning in close, and his eyes keep darting to her lips when she speaks. He smiles at her easily, a flirty sort of grin, a variation of which Cress has seen on Thorne. And at the risk of sounding silly, he has a look, a smitten, starry-eyed look, exactly like the ones Cress has seen in the net dramas.

Kai reaches forward, leans in closer, and oh so casually takes Cinder's hand and brings it to his lips, a feather-light brush against her knuckles.

Oh, he definitely likes her.

Iko makes a strange high-pitched noise, no longer bothered about being heard, and at the same time, there's a low, drawn out whistle from outside, followed by what sounds like a camera shutter.

"Ooooh," Thorne coos. He has his portscreen held up, and a devious glint in his eyes. "Say cheese."

-o-

Cress falls asleep among the wires and clutter.

Nonsensical dreams flutter around her edges—talking animals and singing salads. She wakes for a breath to wrap her arms around Thorne and lets him carry her on his back.

… _going home._

He walks slowly back to the Rampion, Cinder and Iko at his side. She buries her face in his hair, and lets his and Cinder's lazy banter and Iko's playful laughs lull her back to dreams she won't remember in the morning.

-o-

They're sitting on her balcony, and he's teaching her cards (or to be more accurate, he's teaching her how to cheat at cards) when it starts raining.

It's not a downpour, or a drizzle, but something steady and soft, seeping slowly through their clothes, drifting down her cheeks, like tears, into her smile. They stay there, legs folded, cards spread out, like they have all the time in the world.

There's music playing from the apartment above but it's faint. Cress sways to it, side by side, head thrown back ever so slightly, eyes closed. She smiles when she recognizes the song and catches its words on her tongue, and sings along.

"How the heart bends, and summer she sends," she giggles, "a sky that refuses to die."

He follows her rhythm of sway and laughs with her.

"With weeds of the sea that wrap round our knees, and a sun too hot to go down."

 _You come around, you come around, you come around._

 _You come around._

-o-

Winter has taken to spending more and more time in Cress's apartment. While watching a movie together, Cress turns her head and simply asks, "Do you—do you know what I am?"

Winter giggles. "A carbon based anomaly."

"No, I mean," she sighs. Then louder she says, "Pause."

The screen pauses at a comical expression in what is a very serious moment in the movie. "I mean," Cress continues, "am I…human? Because I remember being Crescent, and she died. _I_ died. But how is that possible?"

"Reincarnation?" Winter offers.

Cress bites her lip. Her fingers start to nervously fiddle with the ends of her t-shirt. "Do you really think so?"

Winter takes a moment to consider her answer. "No," she finally says.

-o-

Crescent was sixteen when she was turned. Cress remembers it vividly. Mistress Sybil had done the honour herself.

After Crescent had fed, Sybil had given her the first of her injections. She didn't know what it was, but it burnt her veins, her lungs, and made her feel like she was drowning. And for a moment, a quick, camera-flash moment, she thought she _was_ underwater, encircled in glass, and gentle blue letters labeled her TEST SUBJECT #0036.

When she came back to herself, all she could see was the blood in her hands, feel it blood dripping down her lips, down her throat, still warm. And the body lying next to her feet.

She ran.

-o-

Sometimes that boy who was Mistress Sybil's guard comes by to see Winter. Twice to be exact.

(The first time around, Cress tries to stab him.)

When she'd been Crescent, and known this boy, he'd been a stiff mask of nothingness. An empty void, who sometimes smiled at the ghost of a girl chasing him. Now, here, in this place, in Cress's apartment, sitting on the floor with Winter's feet on his lap, he looks at home. He looks at peace.

They whisper secrets and silly things for hours until Cress goes to sleep, and for hours later still. When he's about to leave, standing outside by the stairs, Winter leans up on tip-toes, holds him by the shoulders and kisses the empty boy on his forehead, before she waves goodbye and closes the door.

He stands there for several long minutes, just breathing in, breathing out.

Winter presses her forehead against the door, and smiles.

-o-

On some weekends, Cress takes her sketchbook, her pencils and colours, and books a ticket to Rieux.

Scarlet likes to bake on those weekends. Sometimes it's cookies, sometimes it's cake. On special occasions, it's something experimental. On unlucky days, around sunset, Thorne and Winter drag themselves in too, quite uninvited.

It tends to get noisy, and disastrous, and wonderful.

Thorne likes to stir trouble wherever he goes, sometimes even unintentionally, and much to Scarlet's horror (and some amusement) she finds that Winter likes to spur him on—a devil on his shoulder.

I bet you can't get Wolf drunk.

I bet you can't paint a giant octopus on a public net screen.

I bet you can't prank call the Queen of England.

I bet you can't steal a Prince.

It's a miracle they aren't all in jail yet. It may only be a matter of time though. Wolf and Cress are no help at all.

They're far too busy stealing her batter.

-o-

 **Red: Guess what Thorne just did.**

 **Mechanic: I don't want to know.**

 **Red: I'll tell you anyway.**

-o-

 **Mechanic: Just answer me this: WHY?**

 **Captain: It wasn't me. I didn't do anything.**

 **Mechanic: The surveillance feed has you.**

 **Captain: That's someone else.**

 **Mechanic: You _winked_ at the camera.**

 **Captain: I'm being framed.**

-o-

 **Captain: CRESS!**

 **Damsel: I've accessed the surveillance. Wiping in progress.**

 **Damsel: They should really switch to a more secure network that can't be accessed remotely.**

 **Damsel: And get a better firewall.**

 **Damsel: This is too easy.**

 **Damsel: Do you think I should say something to his majesty?**

-o-

 **Mechanic: When do you intend to bring him back?**

 **Captain: Whenever he wants. He's not a captive.**

 **Mechanic: You kidnapped him!**

 **Captain: Well, yes and no.**

 **Captain: I _was_ going to kidnap him, but he came with us on his own volition. I didn't even have to use those darts I swiped from you.**

 **Mechanic: Scarlet said you sent a ransom note to the Emperor.**

 **Captain: Yes. Sixteen white goats and a llama. It was his majesticness's idea. I can see why you like him.**

 **Mechanic: Oh stars.**

 **Mechanic: I will not be breaking you out of prison again.**

 **Captain: Calm down, I'll send him back after dinner.**

 **Captain: Scarlet made pasta puttanesca.**

-o-

She's scared of knowing.

Cress keeps dreaming of water and needles. Over and over again, with those blue words hovering in front of her— _Test Subject._ Was she, Cress wonders, ever a vampire at all? Is she even human now? Sybil had not just injected her with things, but drawn her blood every month as well.

What was she? What did they make her?

What is she now?

She wants to know, she wants to know. But she's scared too.

And there's a part of her, a very large part, that's telling her, whispering in her ear, that this is something she should let be. No need to poke the hornet's nest. No need at all.

Just let it go, and you'll be safe safe safe.

Leave it be.

-o-

So she lets Thorne distract her. And she tells him nothing about the dreams. They're only dreams, she repeats to herself again and again. Nothing to tell.

They build a blanket fortress as if they're five and still scared of the thunderstorm raging outside. Her net link keeps faltering in this weather, but they huddle among the pillows and spend two full hours searching for absolute nonsense.

 _Does the moon have feelings?_

 _How do I convince my friends I'm awesome?_

 _How many camels am I worth?_

 _Prince Kaito dancing._

 _Prince Kaito dancing like an idiot._

 _Embarrassing photographs of Prince Kaito._

 _Prince Kaito with a mustache._

 _Prince Kaito with a beard._

 _Bald Prince Kaito._

 _How big is Prince Kaito's pe[[\\\\\_

 _Cadet Carswell Tho''8 u5io'';.]'''''[_

 _CAPTAIN Carswell Thorne._

 _Watercress recipes._

 _What does Carswell mean?_

-o-

When they've run out of popcorn, and the storm outside has quieted into pattering rain, she hugs him impulsively.

"What's wrong?" he mumbles in her hair.

"I don't know," she says.

-o-

Sloppy kisses, held breath.

Teeth, tongue, laughter. She hums when he presses his mouth against hers, squeaks when he bites lightly at her pulse and licks his way down her throat. He leaves a mark on her shoulder, and butterflies in her stomach.

He shouldn't love someone so human, he thinks, someone so bright, someone so alive. But he has loved her so long; he wouldn't know how to stop anyway.

-o-

In the slow hours before dawn, he sometimes wonders the what ifs.

Thorne knows that he's selfish—accepts it, embraces it. He has wondered about turning Cress, wondered asking her if she would mind a little bloodlust, a little eternity in her life. He has dreamed of her saying yes, dreamed of her staying with him, as she is, for the rest of his endless death.

But Cress is light and life and heartbeats. Cress is dreams and love. She's brighter than Crescent, softer around the edges, lighter on the soul. He's seen how scared she is by her memories as a vampire, how scared she is of who she was, and he can't, he won't ask of her to wrap herself back in shadows just for him.

He's selfish. But not enough to damn her, even as he realizes, holds the weight of it in his static heart that what he has with her will have to have an ending.

And it will not be a happily ever after.

-o-

She comes back from class one day to find her apartment in a wreak of toppled furniture and broken glass.

Winter sits in the middle of the chaos, trailing her fingers across one of Cress's sketches of Thorne. She doesn't look up, but Cress knows she knows she's here. For a brief moment, she thinks her friend had a breakdown of some sort and this is her doing.

But then Winter sighs. "They found you," she whispers.

~:~

 **And so, the plot thickens (sort of).**

 **I have exams starting next week so I'll won't be updating for a while. I wish I could take a three month nap.**

 **I hope you like this chapter. It's written a bit hastily. If you see any mistakes or anything that's out of character, let me know. midnightsnapdragon wanted Cinder and Kai, and Jacinter moments, and because she's awesome, I tried my best. I have absolutely no idea when it comes to Jacinter so if I made anyone cringe, I apologise. I'll smooth things out after I've read _Winter_ and I have a better understanding of the ship.**


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